David Simon is nothing if not opinionated and willing share those opinions at great length just about any time and any place, so it probably won’t shock you to learn that he delivered a passionate, impromptu speech about income inequality and what it means for America’s future while at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas in Sydney, Australia. The Guardian has a full, edited transcript, which is certainly worth a read if only because it puts the following blockquote in better context — especially the thing about Marx, which is getting a lot of coverage today from people who can’t get past the word “Marx” in a sentence without their brain shooting out their ears — but here’s a brief excerpt.
So I’m astonished that at this late date I’m standing here and saying we might want to go back for this guy Marx that we were laughing at, if not for his prescriptions, then at least for his depiction of what is possible if you don’t mitigate the authority of capitalism, if you don’t embrace some other values for human endeavour.
And that’s what The Wire was about basically, it was about people who were worth less and who were no longer necessary, as maybe 10 or 15% of my country is no longer necessary to the operation of the economy. It was about them trying to solve, for lack of a better term, an existential crisis. In their irrelevance, their economic irrelevance, they were nonetheless still on the ground occupying this place called Baltimore and they were going to have to endure somehow. [Guardian]
“Where’s Wallace at? Huh? Where’s the boy, String? WHERE THE F*CK IS WALLACE?”
“He was no longer necessary to the operation of the economy.”
Doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.